William Alloway

William Alloway

BSc (Hons) Maritime Business and Maritime Law Graduate

My name is William Alloway, I’m a third year at Plymouth University, currently studying maritime law, which is a great course. Class size wise, it's quite small compared to others, but the teaching is second to none. It’s a culturally diverse course with large concentrations coming from Norway and Greece. Ever since my first year I have loved spending time with these people, be it on course nights out or field trips (we’ve had a few wild ones – which have also been very educational!) and it's always nice to see them after a long summer.

Being a sporting scholar at uni is a huge part of my life, on average I will spend 3-4 days a week at sea on my boat training in the Olympic 49er class. With the rest of the days being spent in the gym and balancing uni work. I'd like to thank Jonathon Rhodes, Caitie Hall and Samantha Veal especially for all the work they did with me last year be it sport psychology, university funding, academic support or sport treatment. I can truly say that Plymouth University has the edge on all others in the scholarship department! I look forward to continuing this with Alana and Jonathon this year.

Third year is quite a big year for me, I currently have three major things going on in my life; university, campaigning to win the youth Americas cup with land rover bar and campaigning for the Olympics in Tokyo. The key for me this year is going to be effective time management. Over the last two months I have travelled to seven different countries competing in the extreme sailing series. This is a great way to see the world and experience new cultures, which I am hoping to share with you all as my blog continues. I've learnt a few crucial skills competing on this circuit; things that I'm hoping to transfer across into my university work.

Joining societies and sports clubs at university, I feel is imperative. It’s a great way to network and meet new people. Since my first year I have been a member of the shooting club, like my course it’s a relatively small collection of people. It does however have that close knit “family feel” where everybody knows everyone. Shooting is one of those sports that helps me unwind, it requires skill but at the same time is very relaxing. I try to do something different from sailing when I can; helping me eliminate the danger of over training.

I'm looking forward to this year, it's going to be a challenge with lots of things going on and it's always-good coming back to Plymouth after a summer of competing. Getting back into a solid routine of uni life and sailing after being unstructured for a couple of months... game on!